a research center at Hunting Island, SC
awarded project
a memorial at Pointe Du Hoc, Normandy
an urban lobby at Savannah, GA
a kayak complex at Whitemarsh Island, GA
awarded project awarded project
The architecture offers spaces that frame and emphasize the site, resulting in multiple moments for reflection. The research center studies the overlap of microecosystems in the marsh environment, exploring how land, vegetation and animal life coexist in one habitat.
The architecture response provides a contrast of scale as the approach on the site, to amplify the perception of the microecosystems. Cabins distributed on the approach to the research center provide moments of connection with the horizontal landscape. Approaching the research center, the project’s distribution incorporates a perforated plaza that acts as a net, exploring its closer scale surrounding the marsh, highlighting the vertical strokes of Spartina grass.
The focus of the project promotes the ecological understanding of the island, how people respect, learn and change the environment. Concepts and strategies towards sustainability and performance evolved from the perception of depth within the marsh landscape. The translation into architecture incorporates a technical assembly of the building and an abstraction of the horizontal and vertical elements of the surrounding landscape.
The sense of belonging has an important role, the project explores mental and physical aspects of the interaction between humans and ecosystems, adapting the sense of exploration with moments of collaboration and isolation.
Metrics: site offers paths for outdoor activities & educational events.
The topography provides the cycle of tides that feed into tidal creeks, being an opportunity to study the complexity of the landscape.
High Tide line at 6ft.
Metrics: 82% of vegetated area on site & 100% of native plants on site.
The constant interaction with the landscape allows people to use all senses to explore the site, the life cycle of animals, plants and water are integrated gives people an awareness of the multiple ecosystems.
Metrics: constant contact & knowledge of the marsh landscape.
From the conceptual exploration of the design and the availability in the region, the life cycle of the materiality exposed on site inspired the structural and assembly process.
With the research vessel as a net, towards the 100-year flood plan, the plaza will be the research vessel once flooded, the access will be through boats and kayaks. Dead palmetto trees inspired the use of wood poles as framing elements.
Metrics: project is above high tide (6ft) and above 100-year flood plan (13ft).
The empathy with the environment becomes an attractive phenomenon of the project. The architecture integrates studies and emotions, adapting design concepts for public and private encounters.
Metrics: determining what is relevant balances being present and projecting the future.
Design for Energy Integration & Adaptation
The use of solar photovoltaic tubes as an overhang louver system provides the energy absorption of the building, combining the collection of energy with the daylight strategy.
Metrics: EUI 16.1 KBTU/sf/yr - arch 2030 benchmark 17.4 KBTU/sf/yr, 9,057,230 kWh/sf/yr absorbed energy from photovoltaic tubes.
Photovoltaic Tubes
Plaza as Perforated Net
The decision explores the material availability, in which the project’s location favor the use of wood for economic and environmental concerns, responding to the conceptual approach for the construction development of the project.
Metrics: max distance travelled 367,1 mi & site resources for conceptual development.
Resources Map
46,1 mi - Concrete from Hardeeville, SC
59,6 mi - Steel from Savannah, GA
88,2 mi - Wood from Charleston, SC
367,1 mi - CLT panels from Dothan, AL
The blend between mental and social well-being plays with the design of private spaces inside public spaces. Moments of intimacy with the landscape defines the site journey, through cabins, nets and screen walls, the architecture frames the contact with the marsh ecosystem.
Metrics: 96% with quality views, 93% 0f operable windows & 95% 0f served by daylight.
0 ft 5 ft 10 ft 20 ft
exploration net ecology education site integration
rainwater collection water treatment inside material proximity structural assembly conceptual response cross ventilation quality views operable windows & louvers
pv tubes solar absorption daylighting savings providing shading Wellness
Collection & Preservation
Acknowledging the high and low tides shift, the movement of water maintain the active life cycle of the ecosystems. The architecture acts as a perforated net, filtering the disturbance of the land and allowing the cycle of water on site.
Metrics: demand of water annually 81,213 gal - prediction rainwater collection annually 178,867 gal.
perfuration on plaza reaching the soil
ecology interaction social well-being moments of intimacy
plaza absorption diracting to wetland
moments of reflection quality views seclusion
100-year flood plan future access by water plaza as research vessel
In the journey of our existence, purpose and value drive the process of society’s composition. Existentialism and absurdism inspired the reality that life is a meaningless march towards a predicted future. Humans are aware about death, it is only a matter of time and space for it to happen, and sometimes, we cannot control it.
The psychological barriers keep us in a track, following the person in front, to reach a moment when identity becomes superficial, faces become masks, and nobody becomes the new normal. Those terms define soldiers in war, a march to an expected death. The troops at Pointe Du Hoc had to explore that march differently, taking things literally but living on a dream. The response to the site plays with the perception of the existing conditions, manipulating the landscape through the trenches and exploring the tidal shift.
The main intention of the design is to adapt the soldier’s journey into a conceptual interpretation towards human existence. The sense of scale gives the architecture moments of transition, where people feel the depth of the physical and intellectual space.
Pointe Du Hoc, a prominent position along the coast of Normandy, was a focal point of the amphibious assault by U.S. forces during the early morning hours of D-Day, 6 June 1944.
The cliff top is located between Utah and Omaha Beaches and sits atop overhanging cliffs up to 100 feet in height. The careful and thorough planning of the Normandy invasion determined that several key missions would require painstakingly accurate execution for the invasion to go as planned, and one of those missions was the capture of Pointe Du Hoc.
Normandy, originally from the word for “northman” in several Scandinavian languages is a geographical and cultural region in northwestern Europe, roughly coextensive with the historical Duchy of Normandy. The region is the historic homeland of the Norman language.
June 6, 5:50 a.m.: Naval bombardment of Pointe du Hoc began.
June 6, 7:10 a.m.: Two landing craft were lost, but the Rangers debarked and started up the cliffs.
June 6, 7:40 a.m.: Most of the remaining Rangers reached the top.
June 6, 9:30 a.m.: Despite fierce resistance, Rangers found and destroyed the guns pushing onward to cut the highway south of site.
Due to the nature of the mission, scaling cliffs obviously became a major part of Ranger training, and Rudder’s Rangers spent a considerable amount of time learning, practicing, and reviewing to ensure their minds and bodies were in shape for what many considered to be a suicide mission.
As the other Rangers moved toward their objectives, they soon realized that the Germans had moved the guns; many of the emplacements/ casemates, damaged by the Allied bombardment, held only dummy guns made out of painted telephone posts.
The Rangers experienced much difficulty climbing up the cliffs that day. Many of the ropes that caught hold of the cliffs that morning was completely covered by enemy fire, making the number available for climbing severely limited.
The exhibition corridor is framed by views towards the north coast of Normandy, leading to an observation tower. In there, travelers will find a staircase that surrounds the hope used from soldiers to climb the cliff of Pointe Du Hoc. At the bottom, a path leading to the water reflects the vision experienced in the soldier’s arrival.
The architecture response visualizes Pointe Du Hoc as a moment of reflection, a monumental site with a story that exemplifies the human march to death. The design approaches the vertical climb as a memorial for the past warriors. The wet ropes were slippery, and soldiers were weighed down by damp uniforms and mud clinging to their clothes, boots and equipment.
In the journey The life cycle is a undetermined path with multiple lines to follow, distinct edges sharing the same bounderies. Every short of breath, we get closer to the end. Life is controlled by time, our cycle ends where it begins, a perfect sphere express the invisible and projected boundaries of our existence.
Octavarium is a project that celebrates life, providing a moment of reflection of how humans live around a sphere. The intention is to communicate the life cycle through spheres & time through swings, with the understanding that people should swing back and forth in time but live in the present moment.
The project consists with the redesign of Elbert Square and the adaptation of the renewed entrance for the Jonny Mercer Theater as an urban lobby for the city of Savannah. The program incorporates the design of a woonerf on McDonough St, a garden of spheres on Elbert Square and interactive swings as the urban lobby for the theater. The project’s distribution has the purpose to be a connecting bridge between the existing conditions towards a moment of celebration, a moment that celebrates life and time.
The management of the site on an urban scale incorporated the reorganization of traffic and movement of people, exploring how to accommodate pedestrians with multiple moments of celebration through the project, moments of interactions and moments of reflection.
The celebration of life drives the experience through the project, the representation of spheres as the cycle of life. The exploration includes the idea of living with projected boundaries, as the edges of a sphere, distinct pathways shaped by the same grid.
We move in circles, balanced all the while, on a gleaming razor’s edge. The perfect sphere collides with our fate, our story ends where it began. The intention is to provide multiple interaction with spheres, playing with scale, texture and light.
The proximity map explores the relationship with the cemetery, having the life and death celebration contrast. Also, the project became a connection moment to the djacent interactive buildings and with the low income housing on the edges of the city.
The exploration of how time frames our lives brought the question of what moment should we be living in, including the idea of movement back and forth through the past and the future, providing the design of swings that induce us to live in the present.
The intention is to represent the life cycle as a moment, understanding how the human mind interact with time. Swinging towards the past for inspiration and swinging towards the future for expectation, but always living in the present moment in time.
Swings Section
Phase 00
Understanding the existing conditions on the Civic Center and the removal of the Martin Luther King Arena, providing an opportunity for the development of the renewed urban lobby including Elbert Square and a redesigned McDonough St. Site Section
Phase 01
With the existence of I-16, the project keeps the actual size for the square and the traffic movement through Montgomery St. The intention is to provide a dropoff moment in Perry St. together with the renewed entrance for the urban lobby.
Phase 02
The future removal of the I-16 provided an opportunity to redirect traffic and expanding Elbert Square to it’s original size. The adaptation to the movement of people includes the transformation of McDonough St. into a woonerf with a slower traffic pace.
Phase 03
The conceptual idea considers the expansion of the project towards the rest of the city, spreading spheres throughout the Savannah that connects people to the Civic Center. The visual connection provides a memory of our invisible boundaries through the city.
The discovery of the full life cycle became the experience of the garden, through texture and scale, the spheres provide a moment of reflection. The blend of full, half and embedded spheres gives the glimpse of what people see and what people project.
The redesign of Elbert Square incorporates it’s original size, but expands the conceptual approach towards the rest of the site and to the rest of the city. The Garden of Spheres is a circular boundless experience inside the square’s grid frame.
The program distribution incorporates disticnt moments through the site, exploring interaction, discovery and reflection moments.
McDonough St. Woonerf - 01
Garden of Spheres - 02
Urban Lobby - 03
Spheres Exhibition - 04
The redesign of McDonough St. incorporates an approach towards the design of a woonerf, where people would be able to explore the commercial blend between public markets & private developments and public interactions & performances.
The design of the shading device explores the idea of covering pedestrians with inverted arches. The combination of fabric and gravity provides the interpretation that multiple colors represent distinct ways to discover a personal boundary of the sphere.
The design of a reflecting pond longside the corridor provides a moment where people can visualize themselves by leaning through the existing arches, representing the idea that people have to bend their spheres to visualize the undiscovered boundaries
Exploring the existing corridors of the Johnny Mercer Theater, the approach is to design an exhibition moment for the spheres, where people can touch and see the spheres as an element and understand how the spheres contrast with the physical environment.
Inspired by isolation, seclusion and loneliness, the architecture response creates moments of intimacy with the landscape through the site experience. Exploring the interaction with the environment through the sport, the density variation of the marsh gives glimpses of the landscape, controlling what kayakers can see and touch.
Floating over the marsh, the design evokes the sensations of marsh kayaking. Inspired by isolation, seclusion and loneliness, the architecture response create moments of intimacy with the landscape through the site experience. Exploring the interaction with the environment through the sport, the density variation of the marsh gives glimpses of the landscape, controlling what kayakers can see and touch.
This kayak complex is an abstract interpretation of the site features, considering privacy levels as a design factor to shape the mental status of the relationship with the surrounding landscape. The mental status of seclusion starts from the act of leaving the surrounding towns as a way to escape from the daily routine and having the opportunity to visualize nature and the signature marsh landscape in a special way.
Winner - 2022 AIA GA Student Design Award
Winner - 2022 AIA Savannah Student Design Award
Winner - 2021 AIA South Atlantic Region ASPIRE
Honorable Mentions - 2021 / 2022 International Design Awards
The aspect of floating brought more identity and more respect for nature, blending with the concept of creating moments of intimacy with the landscape. Therefore, the exploration of designing levels with different highs brought privacy to the experience, creating spaces where users can feel being part of bigger group or feeling isolated with nature.
The intention of not interfering on the site also incorporated the concept of seclusion, where users would use the design as way for self-reflection and a deeper connection with nature through kayaking.
The mental and conceptual relationship with nature provided by the created spaces reflects the same experience as marsh kayaking. The abstraction of seclusion is the attraction of the programmatic experience on the design, highlighting the action of self-reflection and loneliness of the sport through architecture. The abstraction of connecting people with nature defines the experience of self-reflection through the design. The exploration of the mental and physical wellness of kayaking inspired the site experience, being applied into the architecture response.
The abstraction of connecting people with nature defines the experience of self-reflection through the design. The exploration of the mental and physical wellness of kayaking inspired the site experience, being applied into the architecture response.
Starting from the idea that the main activity is to kayak, the project was organized to lead people towards the river, having the other features of the design as adjacent spaces.
Using the site as a design factor allowed the exploration of how people move through the island and the river, with that, the design uses the landscape as a factor to frame the views and to control what users should see through the experience. The program distribution follows the idea that marsh kayaking is the main attraction of the complex, having the other parts of the program as adjacent spaces.
Determining a central path, with multiple options of communication with the adjacent spaces was inspired by the fact that a river, especially on the chosen site, has multiple smaller subdivisions, bringing opportunities to reach adjacent channels.
Exploring the privacy levels of the spaces provided the mix of horizontal levels through the project, considering visual and conceptual aspects of each space. Through the entrance bridge, the feeling of floating is highlighted by the use of the vertical louvers and the narrowness of the path.
The design of the enclosure provides the same sensation as marsh kayaking, with vertical elements that frame the views towards the landscape. The conceptual exploration of that emotion brought the intention of design a vertical louver system that would allow users to interact with the landscape in different ways through the design.
The louver design was based on the uprightness of the marshes, having enough depth to block the view while people look forward but allowing users to see when looking perpendicular to the louvers.
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